Alison

Post something random.

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you have seen in the wild:
Foxes (back garden wall)
Black goth squirrels in Washington DC
Toad (Castle Campbell)
Deer (on the way to work)
Sparrowhawk (in the back garden).

Yes, govt bent to pressure from MPs over the benefit cap.

That's how parliamentary democracy works - and why it's a good thing.

It means a leader has to carry a wider movement with them. There's a counter-pressure to the strategists in No. 10.

It matters that we elect a Parliament, not just a PM.

I hope all goes well and the pyjamas are both stylish and comfy.

The thread about the Singing Street; skipping, hopping, dancing and birling through the backgreens and streets of 1950s Edinburgh This thread marks a double milestone for Threadinburgh, it is the 300th post since the first in September 2022 and the visit counter just ticked past the 500,000 mark! I'm marking this occasion by finally chalking something off my to-do list that has been there far too long. Perhaps by providence, I recently acquired a little booklet self-described as "a Merry-Ma-Tanzie of Skipping, Hiding, Hopping, Birling, Stotting, Playing and Dancing Rhymes". The Singing Street, to give it its name, was the accompaniment to a 1951 amateur film with the same title. Described by The Scotsman as "a wonderful picture of Edinburgh - as true perhaps as has ever been put on the screen", it turns seventy-five next year. It's all too easy to treat its "astonishingly evocative scenes" as a pure nostalgia trip back to an Edinburgh which has disappeared into living memory, but this was never the intent of the film. It is so much more than just a skip and a hop down memory lane, so let's celebrate it by telling the tale of how and why it came to be and by recognising its importance as a piece of a wider archival work. Once that is out the way shall we step scene-by-scene and song-by-song, back to the streets of 1950s Edinburgh to compare them with the present day.

The thread about the Singing Street; skipping, hopping, dancing and birling through the backgreens and streets of 1950s Edinburgh

This thread marks a double milestone for Threadinburgh, it is the 300th post since the first in September 2022 and the visit counter just ticked past the 500,000 mark!…

I like it. Use it for me/partner when feeling bumptious.

Without discounting the experience of those men willing to talk about their experiences with prostate cancer, be very cynical about this push for general screening from the charities involved. There is not good evidence that the benefits offset the risks.

I’m glad it’s not just me!

Oh very good!

Getting really fed up of #Sainsbury’s continually moving things around esp. ingredients.*
Do you actually want my business?

*rather than over-processed crap.

😱

‘Her amazing smile was undimmed, and I would try anything to summon it’ | The Observer

observer.co.uk/style/featur... absolutely beautiful piece about Rachel Cooke by her husband.

Thank God for Immigrants poster opposite the Tesco on Park Road in Liverpool.

Plaudits to whoever put this poster up next to the Park Road Tesco in Toxteth.

With the right measures, lockdown might have been avoided - Hallett published at 16:28 16:28 Hallett says a failure to take action meant a national lockdown became more likely. She says governments needed to take "timely and decisive action" to avoid lockdowns. "The four governments of the UK did not," she says. If the restrictions announced on 16 March 2020 been introduced earlier, she says, when the number of cases were lower, the mandatory lockdown "might have been shorter" "It might not have been necessary at all," she says. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cm27m300p2yt?post=asset%3A8b1ee3ad-135a-4f9f-a492-3614bc240062#post

Lockdown "might not have been necessary at all" seems like a bold claim but, perhaps more importantly, likely helps ensure that if we *do* need it for a future pandemic we won't get it, because the inquiry said we didn't need it. (The qualifiers "might" and "if we acted earlier" will be forgotten.)

Mer claire d’hiver avec ciel nuageux et ouaté

3 personnes font du longe côte dans une eau d’argent avec un ciel nuageux et ouaté légèrement brillant

Le soleil sort derrière un morceau où est tagué un cœur qui me fait pensé à la douce @kristinem derrière des rochers bois un ciel bleu avec des nuages à l’horizon

De l’herbe bien verte au premier plan avec des arbustes de chaque côté la mer est bleu argent le ciel est nuageux mais bleu

Don't give up
'cause you have friends
Don't give up
You're not beaten yet
Don't give up
I know you can make it good

Perhaps your boiler condesate pipe is frozen? Ours sticks outside and can get v.cold. Holding a hot water bottle against it gets it back on track.

Going to leave you with a Home Office chart from their most recent asylum stats so you can decide whether the UK is a magnet for asylum seekers with a uniquely generous asylum system www.gov.uk/government/s...

Polish PM says railway track blast was 'unprecedented act of sabotage' An explosion that damaged a Polish railway track on a route to Ukraine was an "unprecedented act of sabotage", Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Monday, and he vowed to catch those responsible for an incident he said could have ended in tragedy.

Gosh, this is bad www.reuters.com/world/explos...

This is completely shocking.

Plans to leave refugees in a state of perpetual uncertainty about where and if they can rebuild their lives are not just performative cruelty, they are counterproductive to integration and the economy. It doesn’t have to be like this - 1/2

Gorgeous picture of her Daphneness.

Congratulations! Wishing you both very happy.

Isn’t it just ludicrous?

YouTube video by Warner Bros. "Wuthering Heights" | Official Trailer

Was my reaction to this supposed to be crying with laughter?

youtu.be/3fLCdIYShEQ

The photos are a delight; the captions, delicious.

I think it’s a terrific book but Very Definitely Not A Romance, and unfortunately Hollywood and others always try and sell it that way. Really about generational trauma and class.

Oh no. She was so brilliant.

Oh yes, we had that yesterday. Sunny and windy(and cold!) today.

Rachel Reeves to abandon plans to raise income tax rates in budget Labour had laid the ground to break a manifesto pledge on taxes for working people but has now made a U-turn

Oh FFS.